Wildfire relief effort keeps getting bigger

Saturday

Mar 18, 2017 at 10:12 PMMar 18, 2017 at 10:33 PM

By David Blanchette, Correspondent

JACKSONVILLE -- Young central Illinois agriculture leaders have organized a relief effort to assist farmers and ranchers in four states who suffered devastating losses in recent weeks from wind-whipped wildfires.

Members of the Cass-Morgan Farm Bureau Young Leaders committee have collected enough hay and other livestock supplies to fill at least eight tractor-trailers. A convoy carrying the relief supplies will leave central Illinois March 25, bound for Ashland, Kansas, scene of some of the worst devastation.

Evan Marr, a 23-year-old Jacksonville-area family grain and cattle farmer and trucker, came up with the idea.

“I originally just texted (friend and fellow Young Leaders member) Jenny Jackson and said, 'Hey, I'm going to put together my own semi load of hay with one of our trucks and take it out to Kansas, what do you think?'” Marr said. “Her boyfriend Nathan Ring was sitting there with her, and they both agreed this was a good idea. All three of us are driving out there.

“We started to get the ball rolling, and then we thought maybe we'll take two trucks. Well, maybe we'll take three. Then all of a sudden it blew up into this huge thing. Now I get phone calls every day from all over, people wanting to donate and bring hay to us. I just tell them to keep on bringing it, I can find more trucks.”

Besides hay, the organizers will deliver donated fencing supplies, bottles to feed calves and other items that cattle-raising operations need. Items can be brought to the farm at 2433 Arnold Road in rural Jacksonville, or the Monsanto production plant in Illiopolis. All donations must be in place by March 24 so the convoy can depart the next day.

The Cass and Morgan County Young Leaders' efforts will supplement similar relief caravans coming to the fire-ravaged areas from other states across the country.

“I kind of started this whole deal, but I never thought it would turn out to be this big,” Marr said. “I've always been a firm believer that in agriculture we all stand together and we've all got each other's backs.”

Jackson, a 24-year-old Jacksonville resident who works at an area farm equipment dealership, said what happened to farmers and ranchers in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado strikes a chord.

“I couldn't imagine losing my entire livelihood, and for some of the folks in Kansas, that is the case,” Jackson said. “Not only did all of their pastures burn, so did their animals. They lost their income, and many of them lost their houses.

“I know, being in agriculture, that if something like that happened to us here in Illinois, I have no doubt they would do the same thing for us."

Jackson contacted Jeff Kay, operator of Ashland Feed and Seed in Ashland, Kansas, who is coordinating all of the donations coming into Kansas from across the nation.

“The support that has come from the outside world has been overwhelming,” Kay said. “We are in dire need, but the farming and ranching community has come to us. It's been greatly appreciated. There are large amounts of hay coming in here, but it's going to take a lot to feed the livestock we have left.”

The wildfires hit the area around Ashland the hardest, Kay said, burning more than 500,000 acres of pastureland and more than 30 homes. The Ashland area was evacuated, but Kay and a number of farmers stayed to help firefighters try to save the town.

“The fire had a 50-mile head start by the time it got to Ashland. It was coming on 70-mile-per-hour winds, it was moving at a huge pace, there were 50-foot flames,” Kay said. “It got right here to the edge of town, and I could feel the heat off the fire, you could smell the smoke, you could tell it was close, but you couldn't see it because of all of the dust. You just didn't know where it was at.”

Kay said a last-minute shift in wind direction spared most of the town, but farms in the area weren't as fortunate.

“It was a fire line almost 40 miles wide going south and east, and it caused major damage as it went,” he said.

Helping the people of Kansas is a prime example of the spirit of American agriculture, said Cass-Morgan Farm Bureau president Steve Turner, who praised the bureau's Young Leaders for taking the initiative.

“I'm proud of every one of them for thinking of it,” Turner said. “They started out small, but I knew they would have a tremendous response.”

Details of the relief operation are available on the Cass-Morgan Farm Bureau Facebook page.

-- Contact David Blanchette through the metro desk: 788-1517.

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